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Published: March 1st 2008
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Day 279 (31/12/07)
The last day of 2007. What a year we have had and so many memories that will stay with us forever.
We had a few boring CD burning jobs to do in the morning as we needed to free up some space on our camera memory cards before our event with the most famous fireworks display in the world. New Year over the harbour bridge!
Eventually with everything sorted we met Sandie and Tony for lunch at B&Cs, another amazing view with some really good food, and another trip to the maritime museum to try and see some of the things we had missed off on our previous visit. Even with another whole afternoon we still didn't have enough time to see everything - there is a serious amount of stuff there! That could be because we spent rather a long time playing a merchant traders game learning about trading goods around the world - very fun!
After seeing as much as we could and staying until the last moment possible we begrudgingly left the museum and made our way back to our respective 'homes' to get ready for the evenings frivolities.
Suitibly
dolled up, we made our way over to Sandie and Tony's place for early evening canapes and Champers (the only true way to start a civilised New Year I think you'll agree) managing to put away some delicious snacks prepared by Mouton and knocking back some rather fine bubbles!
After a great start it was still pretty early, but time to make our way down to the quay and our launch for the evening. It was a stunning boat and we were very excitied and eager to get on board. After a little wait as the crew took time to cross everyone off the list, we made our way up to the bar and stocked up on a bottle of white before staking our claim on a great viewing spot at the bow.
We had a fantastic time taking in the harbour views as the sun went down with some lively aussies who had a place next to us. With a lot of chatting we circled the harbour in a procession of other vessels nursing a couple more glasses of wine of course! mmmmmmm.
As we continued on our journey we noticed that on the side of
the bridge there was an enormous egg timer which dropped a 'ball' every 5 mins. Very useful to count down to the fireworks!
At 8:50pm we had stopped in our procession and had turned to face a barge in the centre of the harbour. On the stroke of 9pm the sky was lit up with not only a HUGE display of fireworks from the barge in front of us but from lots more barges along the water. It was stunning , and this was only the 'kids display'! It was amazing and left us wondering how the main event could possibly ever top it!
Continuing in our procession of boats it was time for us to be part of the whole spectacle. Each of the boats, including ours, had been decorated with strip lights making numbers and patterns. Most, if not all, had a date included in the design making us think of what made that year particulary special - the aussies next to us were pretty handy for this as we think a lot of them were prominant times in Australian history!
We continued to circle, snacking on cheese and biscuits and replenishing the wine as
needed. I'm sure that by now it was not just the boat that was swaying!
Before we knew it, we had wiled the night away and midnight was rapidly approaching. From our spot at the front we had one of the best views from which to see the New Year fireworks. Watching as the last few balls dropped on the illuminated egg timer we awaited the stroke of midnight.
With everyone counting down the final few minutes of the year the fireworks illuminated the sky confirming to us all that it was now the first moments of '08! The spectacle of the display was absolutely incredible. Fireworks although concentrated around the bridge were also sent from the rooftops and other sites around the city. Think of the best ever fireworks display you have ever seen ... and then multiply that by a thousand! Amazing!
The display went on for ages and as the forworks finally finished the sky was thick with gunpowder smoke and with the odd rocket still being sent into the air around the city. It had been the most memorable new year celebration we'd ever had and we can't thank the Smith parents enough
for their generosity!
Making our way back to dry land the family next to us bought us a final bottle of wine (which by that stage i'm sure we didnt really need but they insisted) and we disembarked. With our bottle in hand we went to the local late shop for beer snacks before making our way back to Sandie and Tony's hotel room. It wasn't too long before Tony had to give both Mark and Chrissie a shake as, party animals that we are, we had fallen asleep on the end of the bed! What a great night - we hope you all had fantastic celebrations too.
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Dad/Rev
non-member comment
Cracking Fireworks Grommit
Excellent, brings it all back and I'm quite pleased with the video clips too, not bad for a little stills camera. Now, where can I get an Aussie Meat Pie????????????